This is the third piece in our Frontiers of Trade Policy series, which examines the places where international commerce is running ahead of the law meant to govern it. The first asked which country owns a resource mined in space, where rules of origin have no territory to point to. The second asked who is […]
Welcome to the second in our Frontiers of Trade series. We're looking beyond today's headlines on tariffs and geopolitical tensions to the questions businesses will need to confront over the next decade. This blog examines what happens when AI agents begin executing cross-border trade without human oversight, and why the legal frameworks governing those trades are not ready. Imagine […]
Digital assets in APAC have reached a strategic inflection point. For much of the past decade, policymakers focused on whether digital assets should be regulated and how to protect consumers and preserve financial stability. Across much of the region, that debate is now largely settled. The more important question is whether fragmented regulatory frameworks are […]
Welcome to the first of Flint Global’s Frontiers of Trade series. We’re taking the opportunity to look beyond the current issues dominating the current trading environment, well known as tariffs and geopolitical tensions are, to look at what questions businesses will need to be thinking about in the next twenty years. Our first blog questions […]
The state of play Following the Supreme Court’s February ruling that tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) were unlawful, the Trump Administration has moved quickly to preserve broad tariff coverage through alternative legal authorities. The immediate response was the introduction of a temporary 10% tariff under Section 122 of the Trade […]
2025 reshaped the global trading environment. The first year of President Trump’s second term triggered the sharpest rise in US tariffs in decades, forced companies to re-price supply chains in real time, and accelerated a wider shift towards politically managed trade. 2026 will not repeat the shock of 2025, but it will consolidate it. Tariffs and other trade barriers are now […]
Policymakers often refer to the “Brussels Effect”, the term for how the European Union has historically exerted influence on global regulatory standards through the size of its market and the reach of its rules to market participants beyond the EU. Brussels often pushes more prescriptive rules ex-ante, which have often clashed with the more principles-based approach preferred by the U.S.. There is no question that Brussels’ global influence on standards setting […]
We need to understand how geopolitics is changing the context and priorities for trade. In the nineties and noughties, halcyon days of globalization, I spent seven years in Brussels promoting liberal EU (and UK) trade policies. Now we live in very different times. The pursuit of a more integrated global economy based on comparative […]
It is tempting to hope that after a period of intense geopolitical and trade turbulence, the dust is finally settling. But this would be a dangerous assumption to make. While the pace of headline tariff announcements may have slowed, the financial risks and opportunities created by the changing global trade landscape are just beginning to […]
Trump's Poison Pill: What's Next for Pharma Tariffs?
President Trump has followed through on his pre-election threat to increase US tariffs. Specific “national security” related duties on products such as steel, aluminium, copper and automotives have complemented a general tariff rise (the so-called “reciprocal” tariffs). Some trade partners, such as the UK, Japan, South Korea, and the EU, have succeeded in negotiating lower […]
This blog was originally published on 31 July and updated on 4 August. The implementation of reciprocal tariffs has now been postponed to 7 August. The US Executive Order confirms that the EU’s 15% tariff encompasses Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) rates. Although Japanese officials had suggested a comparable arrangement for Japan, the Executive Order does not […]
Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has imposed country-specific tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico and threatened reciprocal tariffs on other countries. He has also announced steel and aluminium tariffs, due to take effect on 12 March, alongside threats of potential tariffs on other sectors, including automotive and pharmaceuticals. This blog identifies countries and sectors […]
